


for one restraint

by fealle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, M/M, Sad Blowjobs, Series Spoilers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, emotionally constipated levi, unresolved everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fealle/pseuds/fealle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once you've promised a man that you'll kill him, eventually, it's kind of difficult to justify his prolonged existence with just boredom, or any form of apathy. (Prompt fill for an anon in snkkink.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	for one restraint

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for ch.49 +, spoilers for the vn. for this anon's prompt: "can we have Levi denying the fact he is in love with Erwin? AU is fine. for feeels"

  
_Our love hangs here beside us  
From its feet twitching, desperate_

 

**i.**

Once you've promised a man that you'll kill him, eventually, it's kind of difficult to justify his prolonged existence with just boredom, or any form of apathy. To his credit, Erwin doesn't remind him every now and then and doesn't ask smug about it, but he's no idiot either; the fact that Levi constantly questions him, _why this_ or _why not now_ when he tells him to do something in the field tells him he's not there to watch him double the ranks sewed on his uniform before the war ends. Five years is a long time to keep a tab running, and Levi knows it as much as he does, but neither one of them bring it up unless either one is prepared for a fight.

For the most part, Levi obliquely refers to the past like it was a discarded corpse in the shadows of long-forgotten nightmares he's ceased to have for five years. But he _does_ promise Erwin he hasn't forgotten. And Erwin will always reply, "I'm well aware of it," and return to his papers. He also knows that sometimes the swords that Levi has are sharpened not on account of the Titans he will potentially meet. 

 

**ii.**

Relationships seem to be too much of a hassle.

Not that Levi dislikes them. Life is short, and anyone who has the capability to maintain something else beyond taking care of the self, and dedicating that kind of energy selflessly to someone else is a kind of courage and a private battle he respects. He sees Eren and Mikasa and Armin often walking off by themselves in the field, talking, Eren's face animated among his friends, and Levi is reminded of two children Below, his heart aching in places it shouldn't be anymore but does. He doesn't want to get used to the finality of the war, but sometimes, he forgets.

Hange catches him looking at the new recruits, and she smiles. "You know, there's lots to learn from them."

"If the lesson's 'how to compromise', well, I'm not here for that." After five years Hange knows that apathy is a defense that Levi uses fairly well, which tells her that the topic was somewhat personal, and she shrugs. "I'm just saying, Levi. There's nothing wrong with being vulnerable, once in a while."

"Don't be stupid. you know where we are."

Hange is quiet for a while, and then she nudges him in the rib, which Levi doesn't appreciate, but it's a familiar enough gesture that he lets it pass. "Yeah, well, you're not fighting for things like 'king and country' or 'humanity', either." Levi gives her a withering glare, but Hange wants to speak Titan and is therefore immune to anything Levi wants to throw at her. "Why don't you just tell him?"

He doesn't bother lying. He's been caught in a net anyway, so might as well. "Tell him what? There's nothing to talk about." Rather quietly, he adds, "he fucking knows why I'm there. And the moment I leave, well, he'll be the first to know why."

As if he could leave, now. As if he could make do with victories and a title, strongest fighter of humanity, like that ever means anything. All of that was just words. Hange doesn't tell him anything, but the look that she gives him is a bit sad, and pitying. "I'm going to check on Sonny and Bean."

The Titans, Levi knew, were learning bits and pieces about their human companions. Somehow that knowledge was a bit more insulting than anything else.

 

**iii.**

It's kind of pathetic, sometimes, how they don't talk. The problem is that Erwin speaks a language which has, by now, imbued itself in Levi's bones. _Operation_ and _squadron_ and _casualties_ were things that they converse in, that they can easily lose themselves in; a paltry currency in exchange for existence. Levi is bored with it. Levi is exhausted with it, which means he's also annoyed by the fact that it continuously makes its way in his life when he's not out killing Titans, because Erwin is _there_ and of course if he kills him - _if_ he makes good with a promise he's made, years ago (can he remember why? how?) - then he'll be five years too late and there will be no victory at the end, only humiliation. Strangely, that doesn't seem to be enough to make him lash out.

Levi tells him, "you'll get half of my squad killed by the time we're halfway through that forest. Maybe even more. I don't even wanna think about the kind of trouble that goddamned brat will bring." He's not complaining about the load. He's complaining about how callous everything is, how Erwin is staking it on a possibility that neither he nor Hange can even assure them will make its way back to the walls. Inadequacy is a fact of life in the corps, but most men aren't like Levi, who's running a tab on a man he longed (longs?) to kill. Some of them need a reason to fight more than medals or abstract shit like _humanity._

Erwin looks at him, weighs the amount of words he can say to either piss Levi off or really bring down the wrath of the man on him, and instead, replies with an ambivalent, "I can't issue victories the way the monarchy issues titles to men."

His tone of voice tells Levi, _you should know better_. It's been a long day, and Erwin is not a man of infinite patience. 

Levi punches him.

Erwin doesn't move, but he does catch his fist in his hand.

"I put my trust in you," Levi tells him quietly. "And I haven't regretted it yet. It's been five years, dammit. Don't start now."

He lets Levi's hand go, but then Levi lashes out again and this time, Erwin takes it. It's entirely Erwin's luck that he doesn't bruise badly. Erwin locks the door with a sigh; no need for anyone to come running in and witnessing first-hand what kind of injuries they like to inflict against each other; no sense dragging anyone else when both of them are too volatile to be left alone. "I haven't forgotten," he says quietly.

Levi's knuckles hurt, but he doesn't pay attention to it; he merely puts on his gloves over his hands, ready to make the patrol for that evening. He puts on his left glove, but Erwin takes the right one and slips it over his hands.

For a moment, they regard each other with an awkward silence, and then Levi takes his leave. Later on, when someone comments on a slight bruise blooming on the corner of his jaw, Erwin shrugs. "I was careless with my horse." Nobody says anything, and Levi only stands a little bit straighter.

 

**iv.**

( - before he goes to rest for the evening, Levi comes to visit him late at night. Erwin brings out his supply of whiskey, and Levi takes out his chess board. They play a few rounds. They move on to playing cards. Sometimes, Levi's fingers will brush the back of Erwin's hand, frightened, his fingers slightly shaking as they trace a line across his knuckles and over his wrist, some sort of informal apology, or a confession; both works just as fine. Erwin is not so greedy to force his gratitude, but all the same, he'd like to die with very few regrets, and he lets his fingers ghost over the spaces between Levi's hands.

Vulnerability leaves a bad taste in his mouth, it's twice as dangerous than sentimentality and even more dangerous than compromise in a war where humanity is sacrificed in walls, beyond walls in the wilderness where no man can recognize himself in the thing he's fighting. He wishes he knew what he was doing. Erwin doesn't want to play games, neither does Levi when it comes to - _this_ , whatever this is - but all the same .... 

Levi: "check."

Erwin thinks he should do something. But relationships are not the same as a battlefield, and anyway, they shouldn't be played as such. He has too much respect for the man in front of him to treat his body, his words, like the other edge of the same board they were playing in. He moves his piece away from Levi, preparing to sacrifice a pawn or two to protect his king, and Levi's voice, purposely apathetic, breaks his reveries.

"You can be such a coward sometimes."

"One of us has to be honest," Erwin replies sharply. Too honest. He could take the words back, but they were already out in the open, there was nothing else to do but to pursue it to the end. "What do you want from me, Levi?"

It's not like Erwin hasn't noticed; it's not like he's callous enough to play on his affections every time he sends him out for battle, though affection _does_ have its own uses, and push comes to shove, he'll know when to play his hand. He's not blind, but he _is_ human, and that means he's afraid. Levi doesn't reply, at first, swirling the whiskey in his glass as he glances at the pieces on the board, pawn and bishop disposed on Erwin's side to move into black's territory. Nothing new. One of these days he and Erwin will be as the pieces in the graveyard, defeated. He is not so sentimental that he would immediately consider answering him with, "I want you." Levi knows he'll just fuck it up. Rather, he says, "I want to die one day knowing that I can still look you in the eye when it fucking happens."

If he's a bit acerbic, well, it's just the whiskey talking. For a brief moment, when Erwin looks at those dark eyes, Erwin considers telling him he'd do anything to prevent that from happening, but he is a practical man. He will not make promises he'd eventually regret, not when there is plenty to add to error and what few victories he has in his life, well, he can't really claim all of them for himself.

Erwin purses his lips into a thin line. his throat is suddenly dry and he reaches for his drink, before answering Levi with, "I can't reward your devotion with something so poor as my life."

Levi laughs, a sharp, cruel bark of laughter, and he tells him, "you don't get to choose the specifics of who and how people love you."

 _There must be something wrong with us,_ Erwin thinks, _if we want each other but could barely even stand being in the same space._

Levi wins that match that night, and he empties his drink and takes the glasses with him as he leaves. Erwin opens the door for him, because that's what Erwin does, and before Levi leaves, he lets his hands linger too long around his waist, lightly touching around his hips, and Levi shakes his head, momentarily thrown off his game. the warmth of his hands remain burned through fabric and skin even when he's long gone from Erwin, and it's embarrassing, the way he kept replaying the scene in his head.

Hange, later that morning, pitying him when she saw the glare he gave Erwin as he appeared in the field, tells him, "better out than in, trust me. I mean, these Titans could kill you guys, but you should see what you're doing to him. What you're doing to yourself.")

 

**v.**

Levi walks into his room like he owns it, which, at this point, is probably not an exaggeration given how often he spends his time in it. Erwin is fastiduously lathering shaving cream over his jaw when Levi comes in to report, "all preparations complete for the expedition." His voice is back to a more professional, calm tone, making a point not to recall what happened the night before, because if shit happens today everything else would be so much more painful to think about, and that's not what they're here for. 

Erwin nods. "Thank you." He wets the razor under warm water, and Levi rolls his eyes in disapproval at the way he does it, only because he can, and growls, "stop that. Sit down, I'll do it for you."

That's how he ends up shaving him, the razor deadly close to his skin but all the same, moving through stubble effortlessly as Levi knows every crease, every scar by heart; as if he hadn't fantasized putting his lips on that throat, on his adam's apple, on the strong muscle on the side of his neck, sinking his teeth into live flesh. As if, one time in another life, he hadn't fantasized slitting his throat.

"And for the record - " he tilts his head to put the razor underneath his chin, carefully. "- I don't like the word 'devotion'. It's useless to both of us."

Erwin lets him finish shaving and wiping the blade, before he says, "come back to me."

There's a slight pause in the mechanical way Levi had been going about his task, and he finds himself letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he replies, "don't be stupid. I didn't earn my goddamn title just because I can't perform something so simple as that."

But it wasn't simple, and that's why Erwin looked utterly dissatisfied by his answer, but mercifully, he doesn't press. 

Levi wipes his face with a towel and leans down to press his lips lightly over Erwin's, barely even a proper kiss. More of a ghost of a kiss, really. And Erwin, he never pushes him to do anything he doesn't want, not in this room, because a room isn't a battlefield and it shouldn't be. There needs to be boundaries, he has to know they're there and Levi has to know they're there because otherwise both of them will become two sentimental fools on their way to losing a leg or an arm or their own lives for a chance to see tomorrow.

"You're an idiot," Levi tells him.

"I like to think i'm not asking too much." His hands tentatively wrap around his waist, and Levi tenses up, ready to flee, and Erwin is reminded why he doesn't do this at all, with Levi or with other - potential - lovers before him. Too often the people he gets attached to come back as corpses in his hands, and he has to ask himself who is the more cruel one: the Titans, or him and his lying mouth.

"For fuck's sake, just shut up."

Levi kisses him.

Erwin is not a religious man, but lord help anyone else in his path should he fail on his way to victory, Titan or human. He'd worked so hard to keep peace in moments like these. He hopes never to lose it again.

(Perhaps he could tell him, one day, he'd like to want him too.)

 

**vi.**

That Erwin lost an arm wasn't as humiliating as the fact that so many people had died in order for him to come back whole.

Levi doesn't call him an idiot. Levi doesn't talk to him, actually. In the quiet of his room he presses his lips on the end of his stump as Erwin sleeps fitfully, every nerve in his body raw and alive, chasing that split-second of violence before the re-living feeling of being ripped apart.

 

**vii.**

In the middle of the night, he calls for Levi to come to him.

"I can't sleep," he tells him. "They've probably heard of my injuries by now - I'd be lucky if I still have a job when the sun rises." 

Levi sits on the edge of his bed, fingers resting on the absence of limb over his sleeve. Erwin bites out, "don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't -- touch it." It's absolutely irrational, he sounds like a petulant child saying it, but he's also on three different medications because nothing seems to be working to take out the pain from his mind and therefore when he talks, he feels like he's talking through a haze of fog and madness and pain for hours on end. "There's nothing for you - "

Levi understands. " _Stop it._ " 

That wasn't Erwin being awkward, that was him being ashamed of his failure, or something equally noble; Levi could make the arch of his palm bleed with how tightly he's clenched his fist at this realization. The burden is not for Erwin to shoulder by himself; Mike was there too, Hannes was there too, countless other men were there too; why is it that the best thing he could think of was that he will be replaced? 

(Rage. He needs rage. Rage he can understand. It's a straightforward feeling, never demanding too much to sustain it, and always asking for so little to incite it.)

"I'm sorry." And then, rather feebly, Erwin repeats, "I can't sleep."

"I know." Levi leans over him and places a kiss on his forehead, cool against his fevered skin. His hand moves down his trousers, squeezing his crotch through the fabric. Erwin groans. Levi shushes him. "Shut up and let me do this. Close your eyes. Breathe easy. And don't worry about your arm."

"In the morning, they will - "

"Hange and I will deal with it," Levi snarls. "Right now _I'm_ taking care of you. Do you want those fuckers to see you in pain and vulnerable as you are with me right now? Nevermind those idiots. They don't know what we've been through. They don't know what two or five years means in the corps, it doesn't matter to them. Now for fuck's sake - " His fist clenches around the blankets over Erwin's body, and Erwin realizes, he can't touch him, he can't reach out to him, god - "Shut up. For once in your life, shut up and do as I tell you. And if you apologize one more time, I'm really going to kill you."

The situation was so desperate, so ridiculous, that Erwin had to laugh. "Alright, alright, I'm closing my eyes."

He closes his eyes. He breathes slowly, in, out, training his body not to panic about loss, or pain, concentrating on the feel of Levi's hands, Levi's hands removing his pants down to his thighs, Levi's hands gently wrapping around his length, caressing his cock. He hears Levi spitting on his hands, he's never been so elegant, and then slowly jerking him off, adding more spit, the feel of tongue around his length, over the head of his cock, mouth wrapping around the head of his cock (Erwin had to remember to breathe), a hand jerking off his length, another cupping his balls. Mouth moving over the base of his cock, the feel of tongue over his balls, or sometimes replaced by Levi's mouth. Levi trying to take in his length with his mouth - he never could go to the base of his cock, he's too big for him, so his hands would have to compensate in the middle of his length, stroking him while he so generously sucks his cock. 

It felt good. Erwin could only wish that it felt good for Levi as well, since Levi was always so hostile to touches, to the slightest press of his hand around his hips. He couldn't hold on to him as much as he'd want to, his other hand was clenched tightly around the edge of his bed as Levi sucks him off. Erwin was good at not making a sound, he wouldn't dare compromise Levi in any way, any more than he's already done with their dalliances; with their stupid way of talking and avoiding anything and everything, of the way the burn themselves for humanity and conveniently forgetting that sometimes, you need a bit of humanity yourself to make it through, that man doesn't, can't, survive without love. Or at the very least, without the desperate need of wanting to be with someone. He's not sure if that's alright to mention to Levi. He's not sure if after all this time he could tell him what he'd like, he's not sure if that'll fuck up things between them even more. So he bites his tongue, says nothing, softly moaning in the room as Levi takes his time to build him up to his orgasm. Things will be fine. They'll sort themselves out.

"Levi - "

And that was all the warning that he could give before he comes in Levi's hand, in his mouth; Levi pulls his mouth away, because he doesn't like the taste of cum but swallows what was in his mouth anyway. He jerks off Erwin until he was done, and then wipes his mouth with some kleenex. "Disgusting," he says casually.

Erwin feels exhausted, but nevertheless, he tells him, "do you want me to - " Levi was still hard, after all. But Levi kisses him, licking his lips with his tongue stained with his cum, which puts a thrill through his spine, and says, "go rest, Commander. We need you."

He wasn't so selfish, so utterly deluded, to say the same for him. Erwin nods off, and soon enough, he falls asleep.

 

**viii.**

Hange wakes him up early in the morning to rehearse their speech for the council. Levi, irate, goes anyway, trying to be careful not to take it out on her when he knows she's just as upset as he is. 

At the end of it all Hange makes coffee for them both, and then she asks him, "did you tell him?"

Levi takes a sip of his coffee. It was bad, as usual. "I think he gets it."

"It doesn't hurt to say it, you know."

He stares at the clock on the wall, listening to its monotonous tone, and thinks, _well, at least something in this place remains stable. Passage of time: only thing we can count on. Everything else is dust. Anything else is a risk._

Hange doesn't ask him anymore whether he'd fight for this and that, but she does take his hand with hers and kisses him on the forehead, gently.

"He'll be fine."

He's not proud of the way his voice shakes when he replies, "I know."

 

 

-end-


End file.
